Simple Weather is an elegant 'just the facts' app

With so many weather apps, making the best choices for your iPhone can be a conundrum. Simple Weather (free , supported by in-app advertising) is just that, a bare-bones but attractive app that takes its background colors from the current conditions, and features a screen of basic information that can be added to with taps and swipes.

Tapping the temperature gives you a 'feels like' estimate. Swipe down to add a new location. Swipe up for the latest radar. Swipe left for an extended forecast. Simple, yet effective and attractive.

There are a few things I'd like to see added. Multiple cities (coming according to the developer) and location awareness (also on the way).

But I do like the look of the app (with reservations noted below) and the good ideas that go into it. My go-to app for weather remains Yahoo Weather (free), which I find superior to Apple's built-in app. I also really like Dark Skies (US$3.99) for simplicity and its notification system.

Simple Weather is appealing, and it is, as its name implies, simple. The app will grow and be enhanced after this first version, and I think it will find a home on many iPhones.

One negative, and it's not insignificant: As nice as the design is, the app is ad-supported, and some of the ads that are popping up on the main and the radar page are downright ugly and spoil all the good work done in the well thought-out graphics. Developers who allow ads should consider how their good work is minimized by this form of visual pollution. I understand the need for free apps wanting support, but sometimes a pretty high price is paid in the name of earning a few bucks.